System Failure, Bear with me, I just read it. Options

[Samaels Ghost]

Just read a lot of System Failure, and I'm confused. If those EMPs only took out power sources, caused minor hardware failures, and destroyed low end systems, why upgrade the Matrix as a whole? Why the whole wireless web? All the fiberoptics networks are still there, right? Decks and other electronics got their power supplies fried but those could be replaced and no doubt quite a few deckers are capable of repairing their own. I live near St. Louis and we just had similar situation. Bad weather and power outages = dead old people and pissed off citizens. SF even compares the whole incident to a very bad storm. Two weeks after our storms, St. Louis is mostly back together. Granted, SR's world got their actual power plants and what not destroyed, but it's nothing a concerted effort couldn't fix in a few weeks.

Why the replacement for the old Matrix? How fast has everything actually recovered? Where was this technology (wireless networks, smaller than deck computers) BEFORE the crash? All the players who ended up on top after the crash seem to have known that this would happen and held their cards to play them just at the right time. Is it a coincedence or conspiracy?

[BookWyrm]

System Failure is pretty much an adventure "reason" why the big leap from SR3 to SR4. This way, it covers the gap with enough information, scenarios & sub scenarios so that while you take time to upgrade/convert your game to SR4, you still have enough material to keep running SR3-based adventures, or close the book on the SR Universe.

As for the big upgrade, again, it's to bridge the gap between SR3 & SR4 for long time players. From what I could read, it was being planned in the storyline but the actions of the terrorists just made it easier.

[Ancient History]

It wasn't just the power outages, Winternight took out several of the major Matrix junctions - transoceanic optical cable hubs and the like - and Jormungand completely trashed system architecture. The cost to reboot the Matrix would have been at least as much to install a new wireless system over top of it, and wireless makes more economic sense in the long run.

[Samaels Ghost]

That makes some sense. What about decks though? Are they up to snuff compared to the newer commlink? Except for size, of course. I imagine all those runners with Excailburs are pretty peeved :dead:

[WhiskeyMac]

The wireless Matrix was introduced in the Matrix book for 3rd edition. It is just technological progress to have it evolve to the stage it is at now. Also, instead of having to replace all those trans-global hubs and stuff, they just had to jury-rig or install some new radio towers and they got it much cheaper and efficient.

I also wonder about decks. So my kick-ass modified to hell and back Fairlight Excalibur is now just useful as a club compared to the Street Sammie's MetaLink? That doesn't make sense that they would go obsolete so fast. Of course, nowadays, a computer is obsolete by the time it is introduced, so go figure.

[Teux]

Obsolete so fast?

The 6 years between crash 2.0 and 2070 is the same amount of time it took us to go from a nascent internet to the beginning of the dot com bubble.

It's the time gap between 800Mhz processors and 4Ghz processors.

Computer technology moves fast. Six years to go totally wireless after a complete crash sounds about right to me...

[Bull]

Also keep in mind this...

I easily imagine a sesssion of the corporate court where the reps spent a couple days talking about it, and decided that all the companies they represented were going to push for this change. So over a period of several years, the 10 companies that produce 95%+ of, well, everything are phasing out the older tech and phasing in the new wireless stuff. Plus integrating it into society via marketing and the like.

SOTA is a bitch.

Bull

[Samaels Ghost]

Good business move, now that I think of it.

"You gonna fix our Matrix, Corps?"
"Nah"
"...Why not? We really liked it :) "
"We've got a new one for you to buy :D"
"Buy? :( How much is that going to cost?"
" :nuyen: :vegm: :nuyen: "

[SL James]

[Samaels Ghost]

Magic nukes....whatever. Silly idea to begin with. I'll just tell my GM I'm magically moding all my guns from no on so that they fire bullets so fast they become plasma or something equally absurd.

[Critias]

[BookWyrm]

[Aaron]

[Critias]

[Frag-o Delux]

So these magic nukes didnt kill thousands of people? Not just in the blast wave, but because all kinds of critical systems were destroyed, like life support systems in hospitals and such? The world didnt turn into a huge police state trying to figure out where these nukes came from? Huge riots didnt break out because now everyone that only used nuyen credits now doesnt have any moeny or food? They couldnt get into their houses because the electronic locks now dont work? They couldnt find their way across town or find a shelter on a map, because in SR3 they all but siad people are illiterate in the the 2060s, and since the gird guide system would have been fried their grid guide systems couldnt guide them to shelters? I mean I know people that can barely drive around our home town today, imagine if your car did all your driving for you anyway. Too bad cars wont work either as their alternators would be fried and electric cars would be screwed. Not to mention all the exsisting radio towers would have been damaged. And how would you be marketed a new wireless net work when your home electricity would be caught off for a long time, and Im not just saying because the power plant up the road is wiped out, but your home wiring would be damaged and all your home electronics. So you wouldnt know what happened for a long time anyway, seeing that you wont be able to hear from the emergency people in the first place. So what countries went to war with each other when this happened? I mean they wouldnt have been any wiser to what happened then anyone else and would have seen it as an attack by their enemies and started shooting at each other.

With the nukes that size set off around the world to cause a global system failure of the matrix the extent of damage done to non-matrix systems would far out weigh the need to replace the matrix. Then you have to consider all the things that were totally reliant on the matrix, such as all the megas, I mean they didnt make the Omega rule of not screwing with each others daily operations or communications for no reason. The one real place to hurt the magas would be their sat links and matrix nodes. The fact that any of the Big 10 are nearly as powerful as they once were just 6 years later is absurd. The fact that the nations of the world are even around is also crazy. Im not a satellite expert, but wouldnt the EMP also travel up and damage the sats? And arent sats still controlled by ground based stations? I mean if they are, how long before the birds lose their way and come tumbling back into earth?

On the flip side if the attacks were so small as to only effect the minor systems of the matrix, the cost of replacing it would be cheaper then trying to shuffle all new systems into place. The exsisting equipment would have been scavenged from exsisting non critical sites and relocated to get the critical systems back up and running, then the system would have been slowly replaced like it has been since forever. I was replacing the old cell equipment with the newer GSM stuff today, and in the future itll be no different. Its all about money.

But also, if this winternight group is so hell bent on ending humanity why only do such little damage to the matrix? Wouldnt their attacks been much larger in scale? Setting off all thos nukes and creating the EMP wave I described would be it. Why are cities like Seattle or DeeCee still around? Wouldnt setting off a nuke in these towns done a lot of damage? In DeeCee alone you have a ton of agencies that would be crippled if those buildings where super heated in a fraction of a second. And talk about loosing the Matrix. Right in Alexandria across the river, still well with in a blast zone of a nuke, there are 7 of the root servers of the internet today. You know the .com .org stuff. Those servers poof you no longer can surf the internet reliably. There are a couple of those servers in LA I believe, but I can see them being moved in SR.

I would have nuked Denver to see a real show get started.

The whole nuke/EMP frying the matrix and rebuilding in 6 years with a new sub culture built around brand new tech is so funny it hurts.

Fanpro or who ever is in control, (dont correct me Adam, if I cared enough about who owned what I would have remembered by now) should have just nuked the world, then bumped the time line ahead 20 years, and rebooted the system. The reason everyone above is giving for such a quick restart is to let the older players still feel continuity. The players that moved to SR4 would do so anyway, they didnt need such a rushed BS story behind the matrix reboot. The new players that started with SR4 probably wouldnt care anyway other then hearing the old farts wax poetically about old days. The players that stayed in SR3 dont care either, other then to laugh at all the stuff messed up in SR4 then see the projected publishing of the new books and laugh knowing its going to be a very very long time before those things get fixed. Its really funny that the hole reboot of the matrix is the back story to moving to SR4 and the Matrix sourcebook is one of the last to be published. They could have also really saved soome time going to the new system (SR4) with out the 5 year skip, and just added the wireless stuff. Its already there, it just sucked. The bandwidth was too limiting. They could have just released SR4 just like they released all the other edition upgrades as a new edition with no reason other they they felt it improved the game and added the wireless stuff and made all the changes they did.

Yeah SOTA is such a bitch that in 12 years the Fairlight was the top dog cyber deck, then some crappy story comes along and makes not only the Fairlight obsolete but every thing deck related obsolete. Then gives you iPod hackers.

[Synner]

Just to set the record straight, hundreds of thousands of people do die (not only from the EMP strikes but also from the nano- and bio-weapons they release to keep Jormungand safe). However, the EMP strikes target only a dozen or so cities and several of them are neutralized. It is important to remember that most SR electronics are optical and hardened. As explained in System Failure the Winternight EMP strikes are not intended to destroy the Sixth World's technology base but rather "turn it off" by attacking its vulnerable elements. Though cascades would inevitably happen over powerlines and the second Crash doesn't damage the systems and software per se but the infrastructure and power supplies.

Regarding the nuclear devices themselves, they are mostly modified suitcase nukes and low yield warheads - something with a groundzero of about 4-500 m (you know the sort Ares used in Chicago) - in a 1km altitude airburst. The airburst is important because it extends the area affected by the resulting EMP burst/pinch - has the side-effect that heatwave, radioactive fallout and especially shockwaves are significantly less than those of a ground-level detonation.

Note that what Winternight is trying to do with the EMPs is blind the world, temporarily disrupt the Matrix, and ensure Jormungand is crippled befoire the main event begins with the detonation of the fault-line nukes. After the first crash the power players of the Sixth World could only ever be more paranoid and careful than current day powers and were Winternight's strike solely EMP based it would probably have done even less damage. With Jormungand on the loose the odds change significantly because that's one contingency no corp or government could have expected or prepared for.

So yes, some areas descend into chaos with blackouts, widescale rioting, racial violence, thousands of collateral casualties, soldiers on the streets, enough chaos to mask a coup d'etat, etc. But in places like Washington DC critical systems would be back on line in a couple of days tops, the brass would be hiding out in bunkers, and backup systems and auxiliary power would kick in in the interim.

Finally, anyway you paint it most of the Megas take a huge hit from the Crash and the easiest way for them to recoup is to cash in on reconstruction. There's a lot of money to be made in rebuilding but there's a lot more to be made if they convince the world it needs a safer, next gen Matrix.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[SL James]

[Smokeskin]

[SL James]

Anyway, I cannot in good conscience say anything more about the book or the plots in System Failure beyond what I have already said in the past.

[hobgoblin]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[hobgoblin]

hmm, i would have guessed that the guns would have had a mechanical failsafe when the smartlinks dropped out...

or had they gone triggerless?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[hobgoblin]

it realy depends. if they where ex-goverment i would expect them to use whatever they got that fittet their "standards" at the lowest cost possible...